3. 'There's a thin line between love and hate...'

I looked at myself in the mirror admiring my new school uniform. It was a navy blue skirt, white shirt with a blue cravat bow and long white socks with standard black school shoes, but I didn't even care what it looked like. I was just happy I didn't have to go through the stress of picking an outfit. Aosta Valley High School, I was nervous and excited at the same time. A fresh start. But I knew here, not being able to go in the sea would be a big problem, what if people thought I was weird because of it.

I looked at the girl in the mirror one last time, her wavy black hair tied up with a blue ribbon; I swiped away the ink stain of mascara on her skin, no spots for once. She stared back at me with her olive green eyes, half smiling, half frowning.

“It's going to be fine,” I sigh. Dad had already left so after a quick breakfast, I slung my back over my shoulder and began my walk to school.

It was 8:00AM but the streets were still quite busy, people were walking their dogs, women were chatting on the curb, tourists were staring around glassy eyed at the beautiful scenery of Messina. But I couldn't join them in their excitement, I was so nervous about school. Would they take the mick out of me for not being fluent Italian. I remembered back in England we had had a French exchange student, people swore at him all the time and he didn't even know what they were saying. Would that be me? Well actually I had memorised all the Italian swear words, so no that wouldn't be me. I had also forced myfather to start speaking to me in Italian. But that didn't wipe out the clenching of my stomach as I reached the school gates.

It wasn't like I was worried about getting up to speed on the classwork, I had my crazy French tutor to thank for that. In the time Louis wasn't telling me about how much he hated everything British, he taught me more than any normal teenager should know. At times I thought he was trying to make me stupidly smart to show off by making me memorise facts like 'More monopoly money is printed each year than real money.' and '70% of their lives, cats sleep.' But then he also taught me about pretty cool stuff like the grandfather paradox theory and-

Okay, you get the point, I'm not some average idiotic teenage girl that gets drunk every night and watches Teen Mom in the hope of one day starring in the show. (Louis also taught me to ramble!) But that doesn't mean I wasn't worried about starting a new school, give me ten sudokus and I'm happy, give me a class full of teenagers and I'm a hot mess, actually remove the hot and add sweaty. I'm a sweaty mess.

I walk down the path into the schools entrance and it feels like everyone eyes are piercing my skull. And then the battle begins, but I'm ready for it, I've gone through it enough times. I look straight forward as the gaming boy tries to get me to join his Dungeons and Dragons club, a cute boy begins his battle charge to hit on me and some popular bimbo comes closer to size up my school bag. Finally I side step the 'I want to be your best friend, forever and ever' girl. You know the one that's always like, 'Hey are you new here.' When you've defeated her it means you have won the battle of getting into the school, without having to acknowledge being new. I've done this a few times now so I know what the consequences are of talking to any of the above people. The boy will realise your not just a girl, but a girl with a brain and his brain will meltdown and slither away. The gamer will start paying too much attention to you and not enough attention to his fellow gamers and then you'll have an angry mob of gamers after you. The popular girl will inviteyou to a slumber party which will involve sugarless ice cream and a variety of salads. The new girl will become your best friend and then when I have to leave (which I always do) I'll hate her for replacing me. So ladies and gentlemen it's vital for me never to lose the new girl battle because the consquences are hideous.

As I walk down the bustling coridoor the sea blue of the walls reassure me. The headmasters office is right in front of me. I push it open and get ready for the usual drill.

***

“Hello 10R , this is Coralia Giovanni, please be welcoming!” I imagine the headmaster said because of course it was all in Italian. There was one emprty seat. I was still quite quizzical when it came to the subject of seating on new girl day, I mean if there was lots of seats it could be a pro as well as a con. Pro: You have a choice whether or not you sit next to the guy picking his nose. Con: If you sit next to someone notliked, then the rest of the class probably won't like you either. So I guess it was lucky for me there was only one seat. I sat in it. And the girl next to me gave me the biggest smile, I had ever gotten for being a new girl. Normally when I sat next to someone new I recived a grunt, a squeak or indiscreet staring from the corner of their eyes. But this girl gave a full on smile.

“Hey I'm Letitia, what's your name?” Letitia said, in English. Not fluent English but English as in her first language english. I was hyperventilating.

“Coral.”

“So your from England, I'm American, I'm only here 'till the end of term, I'm an exchange student, they swapped me for some guy named carlo, what brings you to Messina?” Letitia said. I could kiss her. Okay I couldn't. But she was perfect. Not staying forver, so the perfect friend, we both had commitments elsewhere so neither of us would get to attached. Hundreds of long black braids shaped her caramel face, and her big brown eyes, which looked like they naturally smiled, were slightly hidden behind a pair of black glasses. However she had a nose piercing. Again she was perfect, not geeky but maybe smart, not too goody goody(evident from the nose piercing), we really could be friends.

“I travel a lot because of my dad, like you I won't be staying here long,” I explained, she nodded.

“Cool, what does your dad do?” Letitia asked, we were talking so much I almost forgot we were in a biology lesson. But what did it matter, my father was a biologist, after a while his boring waffling about his work got embedded into my brain.

“He's a marine biologist, so we have to travel a lot so he can see all the sea life and stuff,” I explain.

“Lucky, my dad's an accountant!” She said rolling her eyes. Before I knew it, it was the end of the lesson and Letitia and I were exchanging phone numbers. We compared time tables but I had Geography, Letitia didn't.

I walked to Geography smiling, Letitia would be fun and it would be nice to have a friend you didn't have to worry about leaving. I looked around me to see the corridors were empty, I was late. I quickened my pace and pressed down on the door of my class. I went through the usual drill and because of my lateness there was only one seat left, but this time, I really didn't want to sit in it.

“Hey Coral, fancy seeing you here!” Casper said, tapping the seat beside him. I begrudgingly walked towards it. As usual Casper was grinning, his brown hair tousled in a style I can only describe as the just-rolled-out-of-bed look. And of course his brown eyes were looking straight into me like lost puppies.

“Casper, what a surprise,” I said smiling through gritted teeth. As a rule surprises are bad and Casper was the worst. The whole class was staring at us. He must have known what I was thinking because he said,

“Coral, if you like me so much, you should probably kiss me now before all those Casper wanting girls jump at me,” He said and not without his signature grin.

“Oh no, are you one of those really annoying egotistical boys everyone wants to be and girls want to be with?” I muttered. But before he could reply, I banged my elbow on the table, not hard enough to get the teachers attention (or hurt myself) but to be dramatic, I lay my head on my palm and I turned away from Casper. I noticed the teacher was calling out names and people were pairing up. I wondered who my pair would be. I couldn't wait to get away from Caspian.

“Coralia Giovanni...” The teacher started. I looked around at the people still sitting down, one of them would be my pair. Of course there was a nose picker in the mix but even he would be better than Casper.

“And Caspian Bosco.”

“What...WHAT!” I shrieked,.

“I know your happy about being my partner, but please, control yourself, English girls!” Casper said rolling his eyes.

“It doesn't matter, let's just get through this lesson and then we never have to speak again,” I sighed, clicking my pen.

“No silly, this is a project, for the rest of the term we have to study the Ionian sea, it says here, we will complete part of the project in class but a lot will be done for homework,” Casper explained and I wished he could unexplain it. I would have to spend hours outside of school with him. Forcibly give up my free time to spend with him. And the worst part is, I can just tell he's a slacker, he'll probably roll around in the sand while I do the work.

“Look, what's your address, we can get it sorted tonight, and then all we'll have to do is the write up in class,” Caspian said. I nodded handing him my address and after that I spent the majority of the day with Letitia. And throughout the day I found myself watching Caspian. I found myself envying him. Living in the same place for the whole of his life, having the eternal love of his friends and pretty much the whole school. He could put faith in the fact that tomorrow he would be going to the same school, with the same friends, in the same town. I couldn't.